Church Heritage Record 623089

Cruciform, with west tower, six-bay aisled nave, large crossing space, transepts and apsidal chancel. Small vestry in north-east corner.

The church was built to replace the Chapel of Ease erected in Well Street, South Hackney, in 1810, because the congregation had outgrown the building. The new church was the realisation of the ambition of Henry Handley Norris, a High churchman, to replace the chapel with a church conforming to the tenets of the Ecclesiological movement. The church was designed by Edward Charles Hakewill and was built in 1845-8.

The west tower is a strong feature of the townscape of the area in which the church stands. The tower is divided into six stages which we marked by string-courses, and at each stage the double buttresses which rise at the corners emphasize this articulation by a further set-off until they finally cease before reaching the belfry level. These divisions of the exterior bear little relation to the internal arrangements of the tower. The door occupies the lowest stage, and above is an arcade of Early English arches, four blind and three having lancet lights within them. On each side the buttresses have gablets containing blind quatrefoil arches. The next level has a small quatrefoil in the centre and is otherwise blank. Above this is the gilt clock face with Roman numerals. The two upper stages are based on a threefold division of space, the lower having three blind arches with a lancet in the central one and the upper being the belfry stage has emphaticallydesigned louvred openings with receding arches carried on clustered columns. The parapet above the belfry stage is the work of N.F. Cachemaille Day, forming part of his repair of the war damage. The slender lead-covered spire above is slightly anti-climactic, but fulfils very well its function of emphasizing the upward thrust of the west elevation even if it has none of the massive confidence of its predecessor, which was a stone broach spire with diminishing lucarnes.

The rest of the exterior of the church does not really correspond with the success of the tower. The reason far this is partly circumstantial, for the Kentish ragstone of which the church is built and the Speldhurst stone which was used for the dressings have both worn badly. The windows are methodically placed in the appropriate positions, single lancets in each aisle bay, double lancets with quatrefoils in the clerestory above, but the failures are the diffident flying buttresses ever the aisles and the carved string-courses below the roof-line. Both would be good elsewhere but are too small in scale for this church. The exterior of the apse is angular, with single tall lancets in each face and buttresses at the angles. These have trefoil-headed niches crowned with small gablets at window level. A continuous band of foliage runs at the wall-head, a small string-course links the buttresses with the windam heads and a bolder one runs below the windows.

The interior of the church is an excellent example of the ecclesiological movement's desire to make every parish church like a Cathedral. Here is a parish church designed on cathedral lines, and suffering as a result from its own ambition. The church is huge and well-lit, and the first impression on entering is one of enormous space, caused by the wide area of floor left blank between the two blocks of pews on either side of the nave. The pews themselves are powerfully designed, almost mediaeval in their inventive detail. The poppyheads are large and bold, carved with a variety of foliage.

The piers supporting the nave arcades are mostly cylindrical, but there are a few octagonal ones among them, placed with no particular regard for symmetry, but possibly with the idea of giving the impression of a mediaeval church which had been rebuilt at different periods. In like manner, some of the capitals have roll-mouldings and some have foliage. The arcades above are chamfered and have ornamentation on the outermost order which in some cases is naturalistic and in others is more stylized (ball-flowers, for example). Between the arches are lavishly carved corbels which support triple attached columns from which rise the main roof timbers. The beams are meagre in comparison with the span of the nave. roof, which is of a simple trussed design. At the west end of the nave is a disproportionately tall pointed arch opening to the lower stages of the tower, and this is mostly taken up with the organ gallery with wooden porches beneath. 

The roof of the crossing space is a wooden ribbed vault of ample dimensions, and is supported on a plethora of attached columns lined up in ranks seven deep at each corner of the space. This makes the chancel arch forceful, and gives a good frame for the altar which now stands in a central position in the church, an to shorten the distance between atter priest and people which was dauntingly unwieldy.To the left and right, the transepts have had internal rooms built in them, that to the north being a small hall, and that on the south being a chapel and vestry. These are fortunately not visible from the nave, because they affect the proportions of this part of the church. This must have been even more true when the crossing altar was not there.

The stained glass is of post-war date, and has much clear glass in the design, which consists of figures associated with medicine. Beneath the windows is an arcade of three arches in each bay supported on attached columns. The wall behind is painted with emblems of the Passion and the capitals are gilded. The foliage in the spandrels of the arches is vigorous and flowing. The effect is improved by the royal blue carpet on the floor here.